The ever growing demand for domestic appliances which handle, supply and control fuel gases for producing heat, as well as the difficulties encountered and the high cost of providing a suitable supply of this type of energetics, has brought about a need for improved devices of these types. Manufacturers of these devices have been working and developing for many years a great variety of fuel gas systems, which are intended not only to provide a suitable and esthetic arrangement that may reduce the mounting space of the valves which regulate the passage of gas towards the burners of stoves or heaters that use this type of fuels, but also to reduce the amount of material required to manufacture the valve itself, while at the same time providing said valve with the functionality and versatility required to accomplish the most efficient use of the calorific power of the fuel, in the function of a suitable control of the fuel flow.
In the particular instance of the fuel gas feed systems presently used in domestic appliances such as cooking stoves, there is a vast plurality of manually actuated valves which are typically mounted by means of a branch conduit which is part of the body of the valve, which in turn serves as a gas duct between the main gas supply duct and the valve itself. However, although these types of valves permit a suitably regulated gas supply towards the burner, their construction presents the great drawback of not permitting reduction of the distance between centers of the gas feed duct and the valve, beyond what is permitted by said branch conduit, which calls for a relatively large mounting area within the stove in order to assemble the main gas supply duct with the. consequently, the cross section of said valves and said gas supply duct does not show a regular shape, causing the manufacture and particularly the machining operation therefor to be more complicated and costly.
As a consequence of the above, and particularly due to the fact that all the prior art valves normally require a gas inlet duct and a gas outlet duct connected to the valve, generally in diametrically opposite directions, and fittings are necessary for connecting said inlet duct with the main gas supply duct, said valves show a relatively large number of drawbacks. Those skilled in the art have been exercising every effort to provide a gas valve to be mounted transversely within the gas supply or feed duct, which besides avoiding the above discussed drawbacks, will offer substantial advantages both as to its arrangement as well as to its flow control characteristics, at the same time permitting a decrease in the amount of material in the body of the valve and a reduction of the space for mounting the valves.
However, to the knowledge of applicant, all the prior art gas feed valves which take the fuel gas from the main distribution duct of a domestic appliance in order to conduct the gas to the individual burners or pilots are generally mounted outwardly of said main gas distribution duct and, therefore, a considerable space is necessary for mounting said valves. In addition, a considerable amount of fittings for connecting said valves to the main duct are normally necessary. Therefore, up to the present date, no noticeable advance has been made in connection with the design of a valve that may be mounted interiorly of the distribution duct without the need of providing external fittings for connecting the gas duct to the valve.